The Native Tunes Used With These Songs Are Far Superior, And I
Expect Many Of Them Are Very Old.
They are often full of variety
and beauty, particularly those of the M'pongwe and Igalwa, of which
I will speak later.
The dances I have no personal knowledge of, but there is nothing in
Baumann's description to make one think they are distinct in
themselves from the mainland dances. I once saw a dance at Fernando
Po, but that was among Portos, and it was my old friend the Batuco
in all its beauty. But there is a distinct peculiarity about the
places the dances are held on, every village having a kept piece of
ground outside it which is the dancing place for the village - the
ball-room as it were; and exceedingly picturesque these dances must
be, for they are mostly held during the nights of full moon. These
kept grounds remind one very much of the similar looking patches of
kept grass one sees in villages in Ka Congo, but there is no
similarity in their use, for the Ka Congo lawns are of fetish, not
frivolous, import.
The Bubis have an instrument I have never seen in an identical form
on the mainland. It is made like a bow, with a tense string of
fibre. One end of the bow is placed against the mouth, and the
string is then struck by the right hand with a small round stick,
while with the left it is scraped with a piece of shell or a knife-
blade.
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